“I like Safari. I’ve used Apple’s web browser for most of my work since it was released,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Macworld. “I do use Chrome and Firefox for certain tasks, but Safari is my default browser.”
I like Safari. I’ve used Apple’s web browser for most of my work since it was released,” McElhearn writes. “But there’s one thing I don’t like about Safari: it’s a gourmand.”
“Right now, my iMac’s uptime (the time since my last restart) is nearly four days. And Safari is using 6.81GB of RAM, by far the largest memory hog on my Mac. The app itself is using about 1GB, but each tab, each window also uses RAM.,” McElhearn writes. “As I write this, 15 minutes after I said above that Safari was using 6.81GB, that number has increased to 7.14GB. And it will continue increasing over time, as long as the same tabs and windows are open.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We are notorious for bludgeoning Safari – our default browsers, too – with 20+ tabs open at a time, for long periods of time. That’s a main reason why we pack every single one of our Macs to the brim with RAM (and also why we restart Safari so often).
Easy answer. Don’t use Safari.
“Safari is not recommended. The code is a mess and security vulnerabilities are frequent, and slower to patch (see discussion on Hacker News). Security does not appear to be a priority for Safari. If you do use it, at least disable the Open “safe” files after downloading option in Preferences, and be aware of other privacy nuances.”
https://github.com/drduh/macOS-Security-and-Privacy-Guide#browser
Yes all very clever of you but I love Safari, just can’t get used to the mess that other browsers represent from a design and userbility aspect by comparison. Plus as I have never had a security issue with it that is of no concern either. Tried just about every browser available even the dreaded Chrome (never again) and for me nothing is as seamless and smooth as Safari for general use though Stainless was once good and fast.
However now to the issue at hand. Over time on Mountain Lion it had become a bit of a hog clogging up whenever I opened up too many tabs definitely worse in that regard compared to Firefox, the other browser I was using a lot, at the time. Mind you I was on minimal ram and though I have new to install hadn’t got round to it. Anyway moved up to Sierra few months back and did a clean install and subsequently have no such issues at all can open as many tabs and Windows as I like. To be honest the whole Mac is working smoother so difficult to know whether it’s the OS or the clean out that’s the cause, probably a mix of both. Anyway a joy to use again so sorry mate I shall be sticking yo it thanks.
I’m still on El Cap with 4 GB but Safari 10 handles many windows and tabs great on this weak system. Firefox is most unstable with memory leaking from a single page.
Yup. Safari has many issues. I’ve started hiding it on computers.
😀👍
Easier answer – it doesn’t matter how much memory an app is shown using in Activity Monitor. Modern operating systems manage RAM correctly. It’s not something any user should ever need to see, just like the myriad of other operating system level parameters we don’t watch.
It’s still important since it would indicate how often the computer has to page stuff out to keep running that Application.
While by habit I still use Safari as my default browser, it, like virtually all other Apple Macintosh software, has been sadly neglected. Indeed, several programs have made HUGE steps backwards in their usability/feature. Mail continues to be a disaster and Photos still does not compare to iPhoto (much less Aperture) in terms of features and flexibility. I used to use Keynote extensively for my university lectures but long ago abandoned it when they removed key features.
Apple does not seem to understand software anymore and seemingly tries very hard to make sure that the desktop version of software CAN’T do more than the iOS version. Worse, Apple seems tone deaf to its “power” users complaints.
I’ve been a hardcore Mac user since 1985, but am seriously questioning if there is reason to remain so.
I am sorry to hear that you are having so much trouble with MacOS and Mac and Apple and iOS and iPhone and AppleTV and . . .
I hope you are happier with the alternatives: Windows, Linux, Android, Chromecast etcetera. They have a great ecosystem and user experience, right?
Sorry, but I think YOU need a “Reality Check”.
Apple is not meeting the needs of a large percentage of their users. We see that in the lack of new hardware, missing hardware shipping dates (e.g., ear pods) and their dismal software products. I’ve been an early adopter of virtually all mac hardware and a’m a longtime mac user and share holder who, between my home and lab, has bought over 150 Macs since 1985.
When people like me are questioning where Apple is going, that is a bad sign. Your petulant response says a lot about you, but nothing about where Apple needs to improve.
You didn’t address Reality Check’s point: what’s your alternative? I have been a Mac user since 1985 and am forced to use Windows every day at work. As bad as Mac may be, it’s still light years ahead of Windows. So the question again: what’s the alternative? I don’t know about you, but I’m stuck with the best bad-solution: Mac
It’s not a memory hog…unless you consider ALL browsers to be memory hogs. Safari is no worse, and perhaps even better, than other browsers.
Note that the cited article’s worst hog was Google Docs. Shocker…
If they are using Google Docs.. they should be using Chrome.. you know.. that native app that Google Docs was designed for..
I have dozens of google docs open in chrome on a core2duo macmini with 8 GB of ram.. no problems here. I wouldn’t dare try the same thing in SofarySoGoody.
At least Safari isn’t a battery draining piece of spyware. I’m talking to you Chrome!
Oh yeah?
All the browsers suck these days. I think it’s HTML 5. The main problem is, it’s practically an OS by itself. Flash was a problem. I think it’s all of the machine independent code and multi media instructions.
Chrome is a hog too. Firefox is better, but not my first choice. I like Opera, even though based on Chrome. It seems to be lighter.
Still Safari is my go to browser.
Chrome 55 is expected to reduce memory footprint by about 50%. Should be out soon. http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/google-chrome-55-memory-improvements/
v55 was released. I’ve run it with about 20 tabs open for about 12 hours now and the Task Manager shows it using 25-30%less memory than before I updated.
Can’t use Safari on some major Federal Gov. Web sites due to security concerns.
How is that possible? Who is watching and taking care of the store at Apple-Safari?!!
Geez, guys, get with the program. Fix this problem. It’s embarrassing.
It is things like this that make some people believe most of you are fat, lazy and happy–with things being just okay. Well, they are not okay in some areas. It also feels like you don’t care about quality. This is not good for the long run.
I have never had a Safari problem. My default home pages had 22 tabs, never a fail on wake, restart, nothing in what 10 years?
I was about to leave a very similar comment til I read yours. I completely agree.
I’ve never had any issue with Safari. Right now I’m on a 2007 iMac with 6gb or RAM and Safari open with 5 tabs and it’s only using 633MB
I have not read the full article, but without comparing performance numbers with other browsers, it is sort of worthless info?
I don’t use tabs in Safari and it still slows down. How many users have had the spinning ball when they shut down the browser? Inexcusable!
I’m running Safari on a 2015, 27 inch iMac with 32gbs of RAM. The issue’s not on my end so my advice is: Apple get your act together, it’s just a piece of software so fix it.
I have an older 4 GB system and don’t have these issues with lots of windows and tabs. Is it possibly related to Flash? I removed it completely from my system and use Chrome for it’s built-in Flash plug-in when I really want to use a Flash object.
I’ve been pointing this out to friends for a couple months now. I use a menubar app to tell me how much RAM I have free. I have it set to warn me when I have less than 1GB available. When I check in Activity Monitor, the RAM hog is ALWAYS Safari. I then use the RAM reporting App to ‘Free Memory’. When I’m using Safari for long periods of time, I do this A LOT.
The one good thing I can say is that, at least with the 10.12.2 beta I’m currently running, when Safari has BANGED the roof of my 16 GB (sixteen gigabytes) of RAM, at least OS X doesn’t come to a crawl. That used to be the case! But of course it’s ridiculous to have all your RAM devoured by a web browser.
I’ll be documenting the next time this occurs and sending feedback to Apple. I’ve neglected doing so before now because Apple’s AppleSeed Feedback Assistant system is an utter shambles at the moment. I did report at least THAT fact to Apple.
Banging the roof at 16GB? No problem. Just get the new MacBook Pro with 32GB.
Oh wait!
(o_0) Uh, yeah. That would be nice.
Safari’s memory hog problem would even make windows users blush.
Yes…Safari’s quite the RAM hog. Had 30 tabs open resulting in 11GB of RAM dedicated to Safari!
As importantly, Apple please make Safari useful. Glims and SafariStand added much more functionality to Safari. However, Apple coded these add-ons out of existence.
Some suggested improvements:
– when opening a tab via a link, it would be more efficient for Safari to return to the previous tab once the new tab is closed. Also give me the option of placing that new tab directly to the right or left of the existing tab.
– dated folders within the Download Folder.
– Ability to scoll or swipe through tabs via mouse, touch pad or touch bar
– eliminate unnecessary eye candy (eg Top Sites)
And make RSS feed summaries within Safari functional once again!!! The current way of listing RSS feeds is absolutely useless.
Just for fun I checked Activity Monitor and noticed that MDN open in Safari was using 50% of the CPU. Maybe the ridiculous number of ads that are running on the page??
Has anyone tried Vivaldi? Been using it for over 6 months now. It’s almost my go to browser. It’s very fast on 17″ MBP. I also have Chrome, Firefox, and Safari Technology Preview. In terms of speed, I would have to say that Vivaldi beats all the other browsers. My MBP has max 16GB of ram. The only thing I don’t like about Vivaldi is that it’s not Safari. I prefer the UI of Safari over Vivaldi. But, dang. That speed though….
Chrome updated today to v.55. Speed improvements may vary but I have noticed faster load times and 25-30% smaller memory footprint.
This problem first surfaced with Top Sites and a very aggressive cache of websites by Safari. If you sync via iCloud, marathon web sessions of Desktop Safari will migrate to mobile Safari and eat up storage pace and data.
Safari needs to be rethought and needs to give users better control of caches. If you tell Safari to clear only the day’s cache to prevent the clogging up of your mobile browser, you will also lose cookies you do want to keep for regular sites like banking, newspapers and such. There should be a way users can lock certain cookies- call it a cookie jar – for regular login sites and still be able to delete the cruft that accumulates over a day’s use.
Yes, Safari isn’t perfect (by any stretch of the imagination), but I find it very good – especially when compared to Chrome. I have a rMBP and LOVE pinch to zoom. Have you ever tried pinch-to-zoom in Chrome? All I ever get is large jumps in zooming. In Safari, the zooming is fluid and gradual. At least in this respect, there’s no comparison…
Check out Brave, very fast: https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/01/brave-the-ad-blocking-browser-from-former-mozilla-ceo-grabs-4-5-million/
Though it doesn’t seem to support pinch to zoom on the trackpad.
Okay, simple experiment: I have both Safari and Firefox open, with the same three websites open in three tabs each. Safari takes 319.6 MB, Firefox takes 521.3 MB. Safari was open all day, Firefox was freshly started. One site each has a video clip (720p) running.
iMac 27″ late 2015, 8 GB of RAM, Fusion Drive, i5 @ 3.2 GHz, OS 10.12.1
Safari is the app that causes me the most problems. WebKit crashes constantly. Multiple tabs guarantees slow downs. Syncing bookmarks and reading list won’t occur in background so delays me when opening the app just to save a a link to either of those. Please wait, Safari is syncing… I’m sick of waiting on everything Apple!!!
I’ve got a zillion tabs and windows open, and they’ve been open for days and Safari is only using 350MB.
People who not Apple employees should stop fussing over the meaningless stats in Activity monitor. Is your computer slowing down? No? Then dry your tears.
I’m just about to give up on Safari and the only thing holding me back is that I see Chrome doing similar thing in Yosemite and Sierra, the 2 OSes I use on 3 devices (while supporting 2 other family members who won’t touch Safari and use Chrome exclusively).
Is suuuuuper frustrating not to be able to keep a LOT of tabs open. Why not? it’s the way we work, right? Articles we keep wanting to read from days ago and then there are new ones every day especially when you need to research things for writing.
Is it really HTML 5? I thought once Flash died, life was going to get better? Ad Blockers don’t seem to affect responsiveness either way as they may slow down a load, but by blocking all the garbage on most websites today, they do save you time that way.
I have RAM maxed out on every machine we own and while it gets gobbled, I still wonder if there’s a better way to browse. How to get all that we want from a webpage quickly, without all that we don’t want to give up and pop up.
That is the question, dear Horatio.
You don’t really say what is happening. I have 4 GB and run many windows and tabs on Safari for weeks at a time.
While Chrome uses Webkit like Safari, since it acts similar this doesn’t sound like a browser issue but maybe something deeper on the system that might be revealed by Activity Monitor.
Beyond memory, it’s gulping the CPU and slowing down all kinds of things while running ADB and Ghostery in both 10.10 and 10.12.
I suppose it depends on how ‘active’ the webpage when put in background is. For example a static website would probably take very little resources, where a webpage that makes heavy use of background code that updates the page automatically every few seconds would take a much larger chunk of resources to maintain concurrency.
nice post